


The Thing About Disguises

by Northisnotup



Category: Sherlock (TV), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Flirting, Friendship, Gen, Humor, M/M, Meet the Family, Partnership
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 04:18:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northisnotup/pseuds/Northisnotup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She walks as if she owns every space she happens to come across. The late M walked like that too; once upon a time, and Bond has had no choice but to respect that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thing About Disguises

_“Do you know the big problem with a disguise, Mr. Holmes? However hard you try, it’s always a self-portrait.”_ Irene Adler, A Scandal in Belgravia

She walks as if she owns every space she happens to come across. The late M walked like that too; once upon a time, and Bond has had no choice but to respect that. 002 is an espionage specialist, a chameleon, fitting into different skins as easily as she changes dresses. Her forte: the long con; and now, for better or worse, they shared an office in the new MI6. This is only their second meeting. She’d gone off on an assignment two years ago, though now with the cock up that whole mission was, she’d most likely be desk jobs and back up for him until the London underworld forgot her name.

(She’d been trying to infiltrate a very successful crime syndicate; an organization that ran everything from low class thievery to political scandal. It wasn’t a mob, wasn’t rounding up bosses and turning profit. This was giving tips to criminals for pure chaos’ sake. A year or so into her mission, she’d been getting close to the top and she’d made quite a name for herself in that world. Then the secret service had ordered MI6 off the case; just like that Snap of the fingers for a politician near the top and one of their agents was compromised. But they couldn’t just make her disappear, not with the reputation they’d cultivated for her. So she’d started to make mistakes, to mess up, trust the wrong people, leak information, she even grew visibly fond of a civilian. At the end they’d forced her to go to ground and tried to fake her death. Even that went wrong, 004 didn’t make it.) 

Pale green eyes have been locked on his face for the last hour. 002 has shown an odd, even hostile curiosity toward him since they’d been partnered together; or, more specifically since she’d heard his name. 

Perched on the edge of her desk, one leg casually resting over the other, heels a bit too long for ‘office casual,’ but just long enough to make her walk like water. Pose is provocative, but easily explained given the hard office chairs. On the hand that her chin does not rest in, she counts off the times his eyes trail over strong calves, knees – knobby but elegant in their own way – to where her skirt rises up to reveal a small bit of thigh. She has two fingers up. 

It took another hour and a half and one text message _– Cancel our reservations, Bond. Family emergency. –_ For her to say something to him. 

“Dinner.” He glances up, noting how she mocks his raised brow back at him. Her thin lips are stretched into a smile that, combined with the angle of her head, makes the best of her cheekbones. 

“I want you to take me to dinner.” She repeats it slower as if he hadn’t heard her. 

“Tonight?” His hands are sore, bones aching with the weather, and he wants nothing more than to go to the range and fire off a few rounds. To feel the soothing vibration of the gun as it shot. Too bad Q has locked his clearance out of everything but medical. 

“Tut, tut, Mr. Bond. You like me.” She tilts her head in consideration, “Or, you like women like me. Take me out; call it a leap of faith.” 

He allows his eyes to caress her arms. She has long, dancers’ limbs that hide the strength in her. He can’t help smiling at her, she is fun. The type of woman that would have once made his blood boil and heart race. “And yet, I get the feeling that you don’t quite like me, Miss..?” She had cut M off before he could say her name. She played the game well and wore mystery even better. 

“Oh, I love you, I suspect.” She coyly demurs, leaning back very suddenly, hands bracing on the desk behind her, a pen falling to the ground. The harsh fluorescent light now shows her breasts and bird like collar bones to best respect. “In fact, Mr. Bond, I love each and every one of you just as much I love myself, if not more. It’s what lets me do my job. It’s what lets me kill you.” The teasing smile never leaves her lips, even as her eyes grow sharp and cold. 

“Now, how about that dinner?” 

He could take her up on it, it might even be fun. Bond so rarely gets to interact with any of the other double 0’s. He can imagine it, trading snarky and veiled threats over a glass of wine; bringing her to his flat and stripping her of more than her weapons. It could be entertaining, and his evening is now free. But just as easily he can hear a guiding voice in his ear, spilling enthusiasm ‘oh, there you are. I see you.’ He thinks about tea instead of wine, and the mutual agreement to no guns or electronics on nights out. 

“You lost, Irene.” The quiet droll voice at the door startles him out of his reverie. Q has a jacket in one hand and his phone in the other, his eyes take small glances between the two agents every few moments As if he is trying to gauge where this was going before he stepped in. There are files pressed against his chest, but Bond knows he didn’t have to deliver them himself. He so rarely does. 

Irene Adler, then. Well, that makes quite a bit more sense. 

She scoffs, swaying easily on those too-tall heels toward Q, fussing with his collar. “Oh, I hardly think I lost, dearest, just look at him. 007 has always had a remarkable weakness for a pretty face.” 

Bond isn’t quite sure what is more wrong with the picture: the way Q allows her to fuss over him, or the way she pecks and remarks on his eating and sleeping habits. She isn’t flirting with Q, and it isn’t a show for his benefit; but the care seems rather out of character for someone as ruthless as ‘The Woman.’ 

Q allows her a minute more before shoving her away with a file he then leaves on her desk. He shakes his head, adjusting his glasses for something to do rather than because he needs to. This was something Bond noticed a while ago, the way Q will pretend to do something as an excuse to fidget without looking like he’s fidgeting. 

“No. He’s giving you his Moneypenny smile. It’s the smile he gives women he thinks are interesting, but that he doesn’t want to sleep with.” 

Irene just smiles, leaning against the doorway as Q reshuffles her papers and cleans up the mess she’s made of her desk. She doesn’t look at all sad about being caught in her little power play. For the most part, Bond can recognize that this is not at all about him, and at the same time he seems to be playing a star role. 

“And,” Q continues, grabbing the pen she knocked off so carelessly earlier. “You are giving him your Sherlock smile. You think he’s a fun game, and if he were not part of the game, he would just be fun.” For the first time since he entered the office, Q now turns to Bond. His voice is clipped and there is no play of the smile that is usually there when he solves puzzles or out wits someone. “My sister is a lesbian, but she has been known to make exceptions for certain men. Mostly the ones I find interesting.” 

Sister. That was the bit he was missing. Family emergency. 

Irene isn’t looking all that happy anymore, “Dearest, you do take up with the most exhausting men. One might wonder if you were trying to be unhappy.” She walks, normally now he notes, the heels do not automatically make her sway, but rather she walks as people expect her to. Living up to peoples’ expectations is the surest way to be disappointed, and when disappointed they underestimate you. Bond seems to have a front row seat to this sibling rivalry, and no interruption will be thanked. So, best just to watch then as Irene leans in and gently nudges the pen off the desk. Childish and unexpected; but Q’s outburst is.

Clearly, she had known he was seeing someone, but whom did not click until their meeting. Or perhaps until M decided to needle him about the clearance; or until their office, in reach of Q-branch in a way that the other double 0’s were not. 

“Irene, ‘There is a name for you ladies, but it isn't used in high society... outside of a kennel.’” 

She stops. Irene doesn’t look surprised, as much as confused. Bond has been utterly forgotten in this exchange. It is probably past time to fix that. 

“The Women, 1934,” he offers, just to see both siblings gaze lock onto him. He must fight the creeping smile away from his lips. Now that he is looking for it, the similarities are endless. Razor blade cheeks, sharp eyes, curly brown hair, slight pale figures that do not lack hidden strength. (And if he lingers a little on the patch of stain, probably tea, on a cardigan, or a pair of slightly askew glasses, blue eyes in a frame of red that sorely need to sleep. Well, that’s his business. Doubly so if the fondness that surges up in him at the sight makes him want to take Q home and strip him, tumble him down and just rest.) 

Q’s lips give a harmless twitch, as if he wants to laugh. It’s the same twitch they gave when Bond first asked him out, and Q rejected him soundly. And again, months later, when he finally gave in. 

“Oh, all right. You’re very clever, house points all around.” Adler does not like to be forgotten, it seems. She huffs and puffs, but in the end, throws herself into their hard backed office chairs, and toes off her too-tall heels. The smile again plays around her mouth. 

“James, I will see you at dinner. 8 o’clock, the usual place. Do not be late.” And with that last, Q sweeps out as quickly as he swept in, but this time appears to take all the air in the room with him. Bond then finally allows the smile that blooms on his face, bolding his age lines, at Q’s little bit of possessiveness. He will allow the Honey Pot missions that Bond goes on, but when he comes back he is always James. Because while his targets may address him with that name, it is only Q who gets to gnaw it into his skin, use it like he owns it. In their bed, in their life, he is James and no one else. 

(He wonders, in some respects, if that is why Irene calls Q nothing but dearest. Even in the field, even at work; because she wants a part of her brother that is hers and no one else’s. Double 0’s have a talent for squirreling away things that are important to them. To keep close even under torture, and pain of death.) 

“So,” He steeples his fingers together, blue eyes locked on her face. “Is this the part where we commiserate over our mutual fondness for that man?” 

“Oh, heavens no, Mr. Bond.” She mimics him again; one ankle crossed over the other, fingers arched together, head tilted forward. “This is the part where I say: Let’s have dinner.” 

They are going to be terrifying.


End file.
